Chicken Boy

Photograph by Bruce Cox/Los Angeles Times

Feb. 5, 1970: Behold the wonder of Chicken Boy on the roof of a restaurant on Broadway near 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles. In 1977, Art Seidenbaum looked at oversized signs as part of Los Angeles’ vernacular architecture, which he called “litertecture” as in “literal architecture.”  Chicken Boy’s oversized playmates included a turbaned swordsman over Ali Baba’s Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, the Carpeteria Giant, the supersized mechanic for Hal’s Tires in West Hollywood and the Colossus of Hickory Burger.  There are several more plastic giants to be found in Los Angeles, according to a website that tracks them.

Comments

[benito]

these are now called Muffler Men, and at least one photo book is devoted to them. A Muffler Man was visible on the southbound 405 freeway in Carson for years.

[normadesmond]

forgive me, but in certain circles, the words
chicken and boy together are redundant.